The Kate Application Configuration
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The Kate Application Configuration

This group contains pages to configure the main Kate application

The General Page

This section contains a few global options for Kate.

Appearance
Show full path in title

When enabled, Kate will display the full URL of your current document in the window title, rather than just the file name.

Show session name in title

When enabled, Kate will display the name of the current session in the window title in addition to the file name.

Sort files alphabetically in the file list

If enabled, Kate will sort the files in the file list alphabetically. If disabled, the files will be listed in the order they were opened.

Behavior
Number of recent files

Sets the number of recent files remembered by Kate. Note that if you set this field to a lower value than the current one, the list of files may get truncated and some items forgotten.

Always use the current instance of kate to open new files

If enabled, all files opened from outside Kate will reuse the current instance of Kate instead of starting a new one.

Sync terminal emulator with active document

This will cause the built-in Konsole to cd into the directory of the active document when launched and when a new document gets the focus. If not enabled, you have to do all your navigation in the Konsole on your own.

Warn about files modified by foreign processes

When enabled, Kate will notify you about files modified from outside the application whenever the main window receives input focus. You will be able to deal with several modified files at once, you can reload, save or discard changed files in groups.

If not enabled, Kate will prompt you for action when a externally modified file receives focus within the application.

Meta Information
Keep meta-information past sessions

When enabled, Kate will store meta data such as bookmarks and session configuration even when you close your documents. The data will be used if the document is unchanged when reopened.

Delete unused meta information after

Set the maximum number of days to keep meta information for unopen files. This helps keeping the database of meta information reasonably sized.

The Sessions Page

This section contains options related to using sessions.

Elements of Sessions
Include window configuration

If enabled, Kate will save the window configuration with each session.

Behavior on Application Startup

Select how you want Kate to behave at startup. This setting can be overridden by specifying what to do on the command line.

Start new session

With this option, Kate will start a new, unnamed session when you start it.

Load last used session

Kate will use the most recently opened session at startup. This is good if you want to use the same session always or switch rarely.

Manually choose a session

Kate will display a small dialog that lets you choose your preferred session. This is the default behavior. Nice if you use a lot of different sessions frequently.

Behavior on Application Exit or Session Switch
Do not save session

The changes to the session data (open files and if enabled, window configuration) will not be saved. You will of course be prompted if you have unsaved files. With this option, your can configure your sessions once, and not worry about closing extra files that you opened and do not want to see next time you use the session.

Save Session

Kate will save session data, except if the session is unnamed. With this option, your sessions are allways restored just like you left them. This is the default behavior.

Ask user

You will be asked if you want to save the session every time a named session is closed.

The Filesystem Browser Page

Toolbar

Configure the buttons on the file system browser toolbar by moving the ones you want enabled to the Selected Actions list, and order them using the arrow buttons at the side of the list.

Auto Synchronization

You can have the filesystem browser automatically navigate to the directory containing the current document on certain events:

  • When a new document becomes the active one.

  • When the filesystem browser becomes visible.

Even if you select not to use this feature, you can manually synchronize the browser with the current document by pressing the Synchronize toolbar button.

Remember locations

Select how long a browsing history you want. The browser does only remember individual locations, duplicates are removed.

Remember filters

Select how many filters you want remembered. Only individually distinct filters are remembered, duplicates are removed.

Session

Configure wether the file system browser should remember its location and filter over sessions.

The Document List Page

Background Shading

This section allows you to enable or disable the background shading visualization of your recent activity, and chose which colors to use if enabled. See the section about The Document List for more about this feature.

Sort By

Set how you want the document list sorted. This can be set from the right mouse button menu in the document list as well.

The Plugins Page

This page provides a list of installed plugins for the Kate application. Each plug-in is represented with its name and a short description. You can check the checkbox with an item to enable the plug-in it represents.

If a plug-in provides configuration options, a section to access those will appear as a child of this page.

External Tools

In the Tools menu you will find a submenu labeled External Tools. These tools invokes external applications with data related to the current document, for example its URL, directory, text or selection. This page allows you to manage the menu and edit, remove or add new tools.

Each external tool is a shell command which contains macros representing the document data. When activated, the macros are substituted with data from the active document.

External Tools Properties

Label

A friendly label for the External Tools menu.

Script

The script to execute when the tool is activated. Before passing the script to the shell, the following macros are substituted:

%URL

The full URL of the current document, or an empty string if the document is unsaved.

%URLS

A space seperated list of the URLs of all open documents (except unsaved ones).

%directory

The directory part of the current documents URL or an empty string if the current document is unsaved.

%filename

the filename of the current document without the path, or an empty string if the current document is unsaved.

%line

The line number of the insertion cursor is in the current document.

%column

The column number of the insertion cursor in the current document.

%selection

The selected text in the current document, or an empty string if no text is selected

%text

The full text of the current document. Beware that this will potentially exceed the maximum command length allowed on your system. Use with care.

Executable

The main executable is the script. This is mandatory, and is used to test if the command can be run at all. A fully qualified path is allowed in case the executable is not in your PATH variable.

Mimetypes

A semicolon separated list of mimetypes for which this command should be enabled. This is currently unused.

Save

You can optionally select to have the current or all documents saved prior to executing the script. This is handy if your script reads the file from disk.

Command Line Name

If you fill this, the tool will be available in the editors command line as exttool-Command Line Name (the string you enter here prepended “exttool-”).

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